


won't put my hands up and surrender

by thefudge



Category: Black Panther (2018), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Age Difference, Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Sexual Tension, Shuri is canonically 18 from Infinity War forward, endgame spoilers, two nerds who slowly and terribly fall in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: He laughs with his whole face, which actually hurts a little. He hasn’t done it in a long, long time. It’s not that she’s telling the funniest joke ever, although she probably could. It’s her utter, pure-hearted joy, her effortless ebullience, like she’s walking on clouds. (Endgame fic)





	won't put my hands up and surrender

**Author's Note:**

> I will go down with this shiiiip.... you know the drill. I literally named this fic after that song.  
> Slight canon alterations: Tony gets back from space earlier and Shuri isn't turned to ash, obviously. But Pepper is.  
> Oh, I am warning you that this is gonna get pretty saaaad...especially in part 2. Oh, and these folks are dealing with grief, so they don't always make very smart calls. Y'know, humans and all that.  
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (ppl who have a problem with this pairing can very kindly not read. don't @ at me or get stung)

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder  
Or return to where we were

                          dido - white flag 

 

Slow down, you're doing fine  
You can't be everything you want to be  
Before your time

                         billy joel - vienna 

 

***

 

_ two months after the Snap  _

 

She’s fallen asleep at her work unit again. 

He doesn’t know exactly how she managed it because she’s still got one earbud blasting loud and depressing techno music in her ear. 

Later she’ll tell him this is the only way how she knows how to sleep anymore.

Tony rests a hand briefly on her shoulder.

“Hey, kid.”

Shuri startles with a jolt. Her battle reflexes haven’t worn off and she grabs the nearest thing on hand - a petri dish - to wield as a weapon.

Tony seizes her wrist gently, makes her relinquish it. 

“Okay, Xena, warrior princess. You might want to slow down.”

Shuri blinks. The nightmare dissipates. She’s almost disappointed that she’s not facing one of Thanos’ henchmen but only a concerned and exhausted Tony Stark. The violet-dark circles under his eyes remind her of the garden below the palace where the Heart-Shaped Herb is grown.  _ Was  _ grown.

Her shoulders sag.  “Who’s Xena?” 

Tony makes a startled face. “Who’s -”

“Just kidding.”

Tony holds a hand to his chest. “Please don’t. We’ve all suffered a blow, I can’t take another one.”

There’s something so sad and ridiculous about their attempts at humor that she does, in fact, laugh. 

She laughs by contorting her face, almost like crying. She wipes at her eyes quickly. 

Tony lets go of her wrist, not realizing he was keeping time with her pulse. 

“You should get some sleep.”

“I  _ was _ , until you woke me.”

“Yeah well, maybe relocate to a bed. We still have those, even post-apocalypse.”

This time she doesn’t laugh. 

Tony knows he can’t make her rest. He’s not resting either. He just happens to be in another part of the lab. 

“I want coffee,” she mumbles, moving past him towards the gallery. 

Tony rubs the side of his face. “Okay. Coffee is a good narcotic.”

“I don't need a narcotic,” she grumbles. 

They both shuffle wearily towards the formica counter and plop down on opposite stools. There’s something empty about their actions. Like they have no purpose.

Still, she forces herself to talk. 

“I’ve been studying the piezoelectric potential of an alloy of vibranium and quartz crystal to see if its reversible properties could be channeled into a Nanomotion motor-”

“Did you know a cigarette lighter works on a reversible piezoelectric principle too?” Tony asks, fiddling with the espresso machine. 

Shuri cocks her head to the side. “I...yes, I knew that.”

Tony replicates the motion with his thumb and forefinger. “You strike a light, you apply stress, energy is generated. Then you reverse it; you lift your finger, apply energy and stress is generated. You can  _ unmake  _ light.”

“You can unmake ignition,” she corrects. 

“Either way,” he says, “you can’t save the world with a cigarette lighter.”

Shuri feels the familiar shard of tension settle between her shoulder blades. Arguing with him is like chewing on glass. 

“Do you smoke, Mr. Stark?” 

He cringes. “Please, I told you. No more “Mr. Stark”. I don’t want to - let’s not stand on formalities.” 

The real reason is that he hates the sound of his last name, the way Peter said it as he clung to him, hoping that “Mr. Stark” could save him from disintegrating. 

Shuri doesn’t know how much she reminds him of the boy. She’s young and stubborn and not yet aware of her limits. Or maybe she does know, because she nods like she understands. She is, after all, remarkably astute. 

“Okay...Tony. Do you smoke?”

“Used to.” 

Pepper made him quit, but he doesn’t say it. 

“Have you picked it up again?” she asks, staring at him surreptitiously.

He shakes his head, but that’s not really an answer. 

How does she know? He only smokes the one cigarette by the riverside. The nightly walks help clear his head. 

He starts filling up two cups. 

Shuri takes hers with a small thank you. The first sip is bitter, like iron, but the more she drinks the sweeter it gets. She takes a pack of sugar. She wants it even sweeter. 

She decides to change the subject.

“Do you know if Doctor Banner will come back to headquarters anytime soon? I’d like to run some simulations by him.” 

Tony stares at his coffee without touching it. “Particle reversal invariance again?” 

Shuri nods, drawing patterns into the countertop. 

“Bruce is taking a sabbatical. He’s gone back to his own hub to try some experiments with gamma radiation.” 

“Is that safe?” 

“Nope.” 

Safety is not a priority to people nowadays, they ought to know. 

“Oh...well. When he returns -”

“ _ If _ he returns.” 

“He will return, surely.” 

“Listen, kid. We’ve been here before.”

Shuri narrows her eyes. “Yes, we have. And we’re not done yet.”

Tony moves the cup around in half-circles. “I’ll tell you again, then. Motion reversal symmetry is a pipe dream.”

“Stop saying that-”

But Tony persists. “The world doesn’t look the same running backwards and forwards. I’m sorry, it just doesn’t. Time travel isn’t possible, and if it were, it would be disastrous. No matter how many Nanomotors you build, there’s simply too much entropy to account for. We could screw it up  _ royally _ , no pun intended-” 

Shuri gets up from her stool, pushing the empty cup aside. 

This is another variation of the fight they had last week. The same covert fight they’ve been having these past two months. Every time it happens he thinks, this one might be the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Tony heaves a sigh. “Kid. I didn’t mean to upset you, but you have to face the facts -”

She whirls around. “I’m  _ not  _ a kid and I’m tired of you treating me like one. I’m queen regent of Wakanda and know enough about entropy not to be talked down to by some American CEO who builds exploding robots.”

_ Ouch. _

Okay, maybe a camel’s back will be broken tonight, after all. They’re both sleep-deprived and ill-tempered. They’re in what stage of grief again? Anger? 

He shrugs. “I mean, you’re not technically wrong, although the exploding part has a point-”

Shuri shakes her head. “Just because  _ you  _ can’t envision a way of making it work doesn’t mean I am similarly impaired. I’m not giving up.”

_ Similarly impaired _ , he thinks with a chuckle.  _ She doesn’t pull her punches. _

“Being realistic is not the same as giving up. All the wacky Quantum Leap scenarios you’re contemplating? I already have. Trust me, Princess - I mean  _ Queen _ . I’ve spent every waking hour pouring over -” 

“It’s only been two months.” 

“ _ Only _ ? Felt a long longer than that,” he snaps, jaw twitching with a feeling stronger than anger. Self-loathing perhaps. 

Shuri glowers at him. “If you’ve already convinced yourself it’s all hopeless why are you still spending all your hours down here?” 

Tony smiles, looks down. “The coffee’s pretty good.” 

Shuri wants to grab that petri dish again. She wants to hit him until he snaps out of it.“Fine, deflect all you want. I’m going back to work.” 

“You’re just going to fall asleep to that techno nightmare again,” he reminds her dryly.

Shuri walks away. At the last moment, she raises her hand in the air and gives him the middle finger. 

T’Challa would be proud, she thinks with sorrow. 

  
  


 

She does fall asleep at her desk again. Right after she googles “Quantum Leap”. 

Tony knows he’ll get hell if he tries to wake her up. He throws a blanket over her shoulders and walks away, thinking that  _ no _ , this wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not yet. It can get much uglier. That’s how human nature works. 

  
  


 

 

_ a week after The Snap _

 

“The answer is in the vibranium. It’s always in the vibranium. That’s why it was given to us, that’s why Bast chose us,” Shuri mutters feverishly as one of the priestesses wraps a poultice around her forehead. 

“Shh, rest now, your Grace.”

“Vibranium, tell them - it’s the vibranium.” 

She’s raving, talking to herself, praying to the ancestors, making threats one minute and then begging for help the next. It almost looks like she has drunk from the herb because she is depleted of powers. Her voice is hoarse. 

She cries for her mother, but Ramonda has been turned to ash. The Dora Milaje surround her, promising to protect her and serve her justly, but they can’t supplant a mother. 

She sleeps poorly for three days. She wakes up, cries perfunctorily, and returns to oblivion. 

On the fourth day she sits up in bed and obsessively goes over the events of the battle in her head. Every person she has lost is there, and the moment of their extinction is also painstakingly recorded, down to each leaf of ash. Her brother used to say her attention to detail was almost freakish. Shuri is soaked in her own sweat, but she also shivers with the cold under the covers. Her windows are bathed in cadaveric pink light. The sun is about to rise. 

She puts her hands over her eyes.

She knows even this early in her grief that she has to get up from her crying bed eventually, dry her tears, and pick up the mantle. If she does not, the country will succumb to chaos. People have already been torn by loss and are whispering that none of this would have happened if they had not opened their gates to the world. They need a leader, someone to ease these dark times. 

A more pragmatic side of her also reckons that the other tribes might propose their own champion if she does not step up.

So she does. Wearily, she does. 

For a month, she makes an honest attempt at governing Wakanda. 

She insists on no crowning ceremony, no ritual of any kind. She is only queen regent until her brother returns. And he will. 

The people are not happy. How can they be? 

There’s something tried and artificial about the whole thing. 

It’s the worst month of her life. She turns eighteen in June, but she feels older than her old Baba. It’s a good thing he’s not here to see this. 

She cannot focus on the task of ruling when all the while she’s thinking of ways to bring her family and everyone else back from - from where? The realm of Death? She isn't sure. The ancestors won't show her. Which means she’s on her own. 

She summons the council one night and lays it all out on the table. 

“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t pretend. I must dedicate all my available time to my research. Otherwise Wakanda will never rise again. Not that the rest of the world is doing any better...”

W’Kabu clasps around his fingers a small pendant that Okoye wore at their wedding ceremony. He never parts with it these days. 

“Tell us your will, your Grace, and we will make it true. Anything you need.”

Shuri exhales. 

“You know what I need. I need you all to rule in my stead. I know you will serve me well. But there’s something else…” Shuri wavers and stops. 

“No doubt something we won’t like,” the merchant tribe elder speaks gravely. 

Shuri nods. “I must issue invitations to Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner to come to Wakanda so that we may work together on a way to reverse the casualties we suffered. My laboratories are more appropriate and our technology is more advanced -”

“ _ No _ .”

It’s a resounding no from the entire council. Even from W’Kabi. 

“No?” she echoes in disbelief. “But how can you disapprove at such a time-”

“For the time being, Wakanda mourns. It must not be disturbed,” M’Kathu’s heir proclaims sternly. “I have lost family, like many of you here. I do not wish for more loss to be invited into our home. It is not right. Not yet.” 

The others murmur in agreement. 

Shuri groans. “Have the Avengers not proven themselves to you? Have they not fought with us?”

“Rather  _ we  _ fought with them,” the merchant elder retorts.

“By Bast, how can you be so obtuse? This isn’t some petty squabble, this is about our future! We need each other! Do you even care about what my brother would have wanted, your  _ king _ ?” 

The merchant elder shakes with fury. “You ought not to question our loyalty. Our king is not here,  _ you  _ are. And unlike him, you do not care to listen to us. You never have. You’ve always done it your way, Princess.”

Shuri opens her mouth. She wants to snap at this old woman, tell her she is her  _ queen _ , but a part of her doesn’t believe it. A part of her knows this isn’t the right way to behave. If she keeps fighting she’s going to look weak. She’s not supposed to act like a little girl anymore. 

Her people have a point. 

She purses her lips. 

“What will you have me do then?” 

The answer is simple and unequivocal. The Avengers will not come here. She must go to them. 

 

 

 

_ four months after the Snap  _

 

Leaving Wakanda was easier than she thought. Her home was only a reminder of failure. Everywhere she went she saw ghosts. Here, in this cold and riverine hide-out in the backwoods of New York she can breathe a little easier. This land’s ghosts don't know her. She has been living at the Avengers’ Facility for three months now and in all that time she has been to the city only twice, usually for supplies or to meet with some remaining world leaders. 

She remembers she was once unbelievably excited about the prospect of New York, getting to see and taste and feel everything, capturing that pulse of life and holding it between her fingers, but now she doesn’t really care if it gets wiped off the map. 

Shuri has never been depressed before. Sad, sure. Desperate, sometimes. But never so utterly empty, hollowed out like a waxing moon. For all her posturing in front of Tony Stark, she is slowly losing her focus. She spends most days staring blankly at screens, picturing her brother’s face. She tells herself at least she’s staring. 

It isn’t just the fact that she lost her family. It’s the futility of their deaths, the gratuitous way they all perished. Not with a bang. Not even with a whimper. Thanos’ purge was soundless and efficient. 

She can’t even speak of death proper. This is death without a face. 

She walks by the riverbank, casting stones into the muddy waters. She searches for the colorful ones, the ones that look like gems, and she tosses them angrily. 

A small stone hits her back.

Shuri whirls around.

Tony Stark is juggling a few pebbles. “Uh, sorry about that. Meant to hit you in the head.”

She blinks. “Why would you hit me in the head?” 

He shrugs, looking intensely uncomfortable. “Seemed like a... fun way of saying hello. Just - forget about it.” 

Shuri raises an eyebrow. “Your aim is pretty bad.” 

Tony massages his shoulder. “Yeah, Thanos did a number on me. Though I guess my aim wasn’t that great before either.”

Shuri bites her lip. She wants to say sorry, but it’s his turn to apologize for their last fight.

Instead she says, “I can turn around and you can try again, if you like.”

Tony smiles. “You’re kind, but no. I was thinking you might want to go for a drive.” 

“A drive.”

“Just around the block.” 

“The block.”

“...or you could keep repeating everything I say. That works too. ”

Shuri hits a stone with her foot. “What is this about?”

“I don’t want to go back inside,” he says, pointing at headquarters behind them. “Because I know where I’ll be. And I know where you’ll be. So how about we both... _ not _ be there?”

Shuri considers his offer. It’s tempting to have a pretext not to go back to work. 

Tony throws something at her and this time, his aim is perfect.

She catches the car keys. 

“You get to drive,” he says. 

  
  


 

“How did you know I like driving?” she asks as she expertly takes a sharp bend in the road. 

“Oh, I pegged you as a Tokyo Drift type the moment I met you.” 

Shuri looks at him sideways. “You have to work on your references. You’re not as hip as you think you are, Mr. Stark.” 

“I told you it’s Tony. And I’m actually  _ very  _ hip. You just haven't seen me in action.”

Shuri rolls her eyes. “Do you ever stop joking or is this your constant defense mechanism?” 

“My real defense mechanisms are a bit better,” he remarks, staring out the window. “Do you like the car?” 

Shuri changes gears quickly. She can feel her teeth rattling in her mouth. She frankly  _ loves  _ it. The ride is eccentric and colorful and clearly vintage. She knows her mother would have a heart attack to see her driving such a “rust bucket” but she’s not here, is she? 

She shrugs. “It’s not Wakandan, but it’ll do.” 

“It’s a Ford 32. I hooded and restored it. I may have added a few surprises too.” 

“You restore cars?”

“I like to tinker.”

Shuri stares at his profile. “I’ve designed tune-ups for our cars, though we prefer other means of transportation.” 

He tilts his head. “Maybe I’ll try one of your...means of transportation someday.” 

Shuri knows he’s fishing for something. She shakes her head. “Don’t get your hopes up.” 

“I’ve offered a whole facility. Someone’s being a little stingy.”

“I brought vibranium,” she argues, pushing down on the gas.

“Mm, yes, enough for a toy car.”

Shuri accelerates. “Baba did once say if we offered you a finger you’d take the whole hand.” 

“Hey, I wouldn't mind a vibranium finger.”

She clenches her jaw. “We need more time to get back on our feet. We can't just hand it over to you. When my brother returns, he’ll -”

“It’s not about your brother.”

“Of course it is!”

“Easy there, scout,” Tony warns her, nodding at the speedometer. The background has gradually become a blur and the river is a flash of silver in the distance. 

Shuri smiles a rather dangerous smile. “What, are you scared?”

Tony looks up ahead. The road twists and turns with the river.  She’s going faster and faster, the car hurdling inelegantly, tyres screeching to keep up. It wasn’t made for this kind of speed. 

He realizes in that moment he’s not actually scared. It’s not that he welcomes the rush. He just - he doesn’t care, one way or another. Without Pepper, death is just one more unremarkable destination.

“I’m not scared,” he says, leaning back against the headrest. “That’s the problem.” 

Shuri grips the wheel harder.

“The question is,” he drawls, “do you want to die here, right now, with a stranger?” 

His voice is cool, almost clinical. Like he is exploring an interesting possibility. 

It chills Shuri to the bone.

She shifts gears and brakes, stopping the car in the middle of the road with a harsh groan. They’re both thrown against the dashboard. 

Shuri leans against the wheel. 

She hides her face. 

They sit like that for a good, long time, their heavy breathing the only sound in the car. 

Tony must think she’s crying, but she’s not. Her face is completely dry. She’s staring glassily into the side mirror, seeing only half her face, not really recognizing herself. 

When she finally lifts her head, she has to stifle a gasp.

Tony Stark is sitting there with silent tears tracking his stoic face. Nothing else would betray the fact that he is crying but for the organic matter itself. Tears. Salty and ineffective. They never bring anyone back. But we still shed them.

Shuri thinks about comforting him, saying something or touching him, but she finds she’s scared. Scared of him when he’s not quipping. Scared of him when he’s truly and utterly miserable.

She starts the engine. 

“You’re not a stranger,” she whispers, more to herself. 

She drives them back in perfect silence. Tony lets the tears dry. 

Natasha is waiting for them when they return. She takes a look at Tony’s face before he vanishes up the stairs.  

“What happened there?” she asks Shuri. 

“Pick a reason,” the girl replies unhelpfully and moves past her. 

  
  


 

Later she goes down to see Natasha in the control room. The redhead is checking in with Rhodes regarding Clint Barton’s “irregular” activities when she sees Shuri lurking in a corner. 

“Need anything?” Nat asks coolly.

“No. Yes. I...I want to punch something. There’s a room for that, isn’t there?”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “You’re not familiar with the training grounds?” 

“I am. But I thought you might want to punch with me.” Shuri flexes her fist with a weak smile. 

The redhead swivels in her chair.

“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re after.”

Shuri wonders if Tony asked this of her too. She shakes her head. “That’s not what I'm after. I just want company. Besides, I’m tougher than I look.”

Nat smiles. “I know you are.”

“So then?”

She gets up from her chair. She can’t pass up an invitation from the queen of Wakanda. 

 

 

 

Next morning Shuri is very sore but at least more at peace with herself. She likes her blistered knuckles. She even likes the fact that she can’t make a fist without wincing. Natasha told her she was strong for someone so skinny. Shuri told her about Okoye’s brand of “tough love”, how she made the young princess run laps every morning for endurance until she was old enough to do it on her own. 

Shuri smiles at the memory, and then her smile falters when she sees her vibranium bracelet is pulsing faintly. 

There’s a message from home. The same message from home. Under the guise of weekly briefings, W’Kabi is once again asking her to return. 

Shuri sets the bracelet aside. 

She contemplates going back to sleep, but she can't quiet her mind and there’s someone asking permission to enter her quarters.

She shrugs on a robe and walks to the front room. She is surprised to find Tony Stark there. He too is surprised to see her in her pajamas.

“Is that prime real estate in Wakanda?” he asks, pointing awkwardly to her chest area. There is a print of majestic mountain peaks on her tank top. 

Shuri lifts both eyebrows. “We do have mountains in Wakanda but this is actually Mont Blanc. You know, the Alps?”

Tony chews the inside of his jaw. He wonders if he’s come down with a foot-in-mouth syndrome or if it’s just being around her. “Yeah… I’m familiar.”

“Baba took us holidaying there once,” Shuri explains. “I got PJ’s.”

“That makes sense.”

Shuri cocks her head. “Are you okay -”

Tony’s focus returns. “Who, me? Absolutely. In fact, this is why I wanted to see you. To...assure you that yesterday won't happen again. Here…”

Shuri looks down.

Tony hands her the car keys. 

“This is my way of saying sorry.”

Shuri is puzzled. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you free access to my car. In fact, I am handing it over to you.”

You can't just  _ give _ me the car.”

“I have others.”

“But this one is special to you. It’s different.”

“No, it’s…not. Not anymore.”

She shakes her head. “I don't want it.”

“Then sell it for parts, but it's yours.”

Shuri would like to argue more, but he walks out of her quarters without a single glance back. 

Natasha told her something while they were fighting, something she did not understand until now.

“You need to give Tony a few days. He doesn’t like it when people witness his vulnerable side.” 

Shuri thumbs the car keys. 

_ Men are such babies.  _

The thought sounds alien, as if beamed from a distant planet. It’s the voice inside her head, the young Shuri she used to be. She hasn’t heard her in a long time. 

  
  


 

 

_ nine months after the Snap _

 

She does put his Ford 32 to good use. If at first she avoided New York like the plague, now she spends most of her nights in town, getting thoroughly  _ hammered _ \- as Thor might put it - in the seediest bars she can find. She dances like a zombie, body soft and pliant from the little pills she lets melt on her tongue. She doesn't really enjoy it. No one around her does either. It doesn't feel like teenage rebellion. It’s just another phase of grief, but this one comes with some stupefying alternatives. 

There’s so much self-pity going around - which is, for once, genuinely earned - that every nightclub is filled with weepy people ready to jump in bed with you because “you never know when your turn could come”. The thought of being snapped out of existence fuels people, it makes them do very stupid things. 

“Don’t you wanna spend your last night on Earth with someone?” the man in front of her propositions directly. He wears sunglasses indoors. That should be the first red flag. 

Shuri slams the empty shot glass against the counter. Through the haze of vodka and lime he does look moderately attractive, if a little sweaty. But the whole place is filled with folks who haven’t showered in days. What’s there to shower for? Shuri kind of likes the grimy feel of the place. She likes the burning sensation down her throat. She would even like to sleep with someone for the first time without it meaning anything at all. 

“I don’t think it’s my last night on Earth,” she responds as he sidles closer to her. 

“It could be, though.”

Shuri bites her lip. “Somehow I think I’m safe.”

“Why are you so confident?” he asks, signalling the bartender for two more glasses. 

“I just know things.” She smiles. “I’m very old and very wise.”

He laughs. “Old and wise, huh? I like that.” 

“Then you’re gonna love me.” 

Shuri doesn’t think she’s  _ that  _ intoxicated. But that definitely sounded like -

Tony Stark nonchalantly steps in between her and her would-be admirer. 

“Uuh, who are you?” the man asks, sensing trouble.

“This young girl’s  _ very  _ concerned father.” 

Shuri opens her mouth, but she’s too shocked for words. She nearly falls off her stool.

Tony pats the man on the shoulder. “Are you familiar with someone called Chris Hansen?”

“Look, man, I had no idea - I thought she was older. I - I guess I should go.” 

Tony smiles affably. “That’s probably for the best. Unless you  _ really  _ want this to be your last night on Earth.”

Sunglasses doesn’t have to think twice about it. Shuri watches him go with a mixture of regret and relief. 

She whirls around. “What the hell is wrong with you? You made me sound like an infant, I’m almost nineteen -”

Tony takes hold of her arm. “I hate to inform you, but “almost nineteen” does not mean you can drink your entire weight in vodka. Also, vodka? Really? You’re new at this, start with the basics.” 

On cue, two vodka shots skid against the counter. Tony deftly grabs them before Shuri can make a dive for them. 

He downs each shot without blinking.  

“ _ Hey _ -!”

“What? What are you gonna do about it?” he taunts. “Last time I checked, you’re still underage.” 

She pushes past him with a huff. “What are you even doing here?” 

“The Ford 32 does have a GPS, you know.”

“I thought it’s  _ myyy  _ car now,” she drawls, slurring the words slightly. 

“Yeah, about that. I didn’t give it to you so you can drive yourself off a bridge.” 

“Pffff. I’m not going to drive it off a bridge. I’m going to find someone to spend the night with,” she announces boldly and before he can issue a protest, she pulls away from him and dives into the teeming, dancing crowd.

Tony leans against the bar with a sigh. He doesn’t appreciate having to babysit her, but he should catch her before she does anything stupid. 

As he parts the sea of sweaty bodies he hears the first trills of a familiar song. He finds himself laughing.  _ Well, they definitely have a sense of humor. _

He catches glimpses of Shuri, locks whipping the air with static, striking their own melody, licks of energy, the kind you see when you take a photo of speeding cars. 

He tries to follow her, but she seems to dart in and out of the picture like glowworms. 

The song winds around her wrist and fingers. She drags it with her like a web. 

_ Oooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth? _

_ Ooh, heaven is a place on Earth.  _

He darts for her and she evades him. She dances in and out of his vision, her white teeth flashing with an ecstatic laugh. 

_ They say in heaven love comes first _

_ We’ll make heaven a place on Earth  _

Her face shimmers, turns left and right, faces him directly, seems to attack him, seems to surround him. She is many girls at once, but he has to catch just one. 

Tony comes closer. He sways slightly to the music. 

“Are you okay, Baba? Too much excitement for an old man?” she taunts gleefully.

Tony smiles. He doesn’t want to be here, looking after her. But he doesn’t know where  _ else  _ he’d be. For better or worse, she is his charge now. And he’ll make good on it. 

He bends down and grabs the back of her legs. He hoists her up, hauls her over his bad shoulder without a single hitch. 

“Hey! Hey put me  _ down _ ! You can’t do this!”

Shuri beats his back with her fists and struggles vainly to get free. 

Tony tightens his hold, feels the warmth of her bare thigh against his fingers and tries not to think about it as he marches out of the club with the princess-queen thrown over his shoulder. 

_ We'll make heaven a place on Earth.  _

  
  


 

He sets her down on the sidewalk. 

Shuri kicks him in the shins the moment he lets go. 

He stumbles back. “Ow.”

“This is what you get!” she yells, kneeing him in the gut, hard. _Twice_. 

She is drunk and angry - a miniature Thor if he's ever seen one. When he bends over she strikes his nose with the back of her palm.

He hears a soft crack. 

“Motion reversal symmetry is  _ not  _ a pipe dream!” she screams in his face, slapping him again, knuckles taut. 

A part of her is already on the battlefield. 

Blood trickles out of his nostrils. He covers his nose with his hand. “ _ Shit _ . Okay, you’ve made your point.” 

Shuri stops. She breathes hard, staring at him as if he were a stranger.

But he’s not.

He’s not. 

She lowers her hand in shock. “I - I’m -sorry -”

Tony leans against the brick wall behind him. “You’ve been training with Nat.”

She rubs her hand. “I don’t need her to kick your ass.”   

He cough up a laugh. “Clearly.” 

“That’s not what I - I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not, but that’s okay.” 

She looks at him for a moment. She looks at the blood. She reaches forward boldly, insensibly, like she is being guided by strings, and wipes the trickle from his upper lip. 

She does it gently. 

Tony stills. 

She feels a second heart thrumming there, right under the skin.

She steps back, staring at her now red fingers. 

The world feels incredibly small. All of its bloodshed is on her digits. 

Shuri’s eyes glisten. 

“What am I doing? What - what if I killed you?  What if you were gone too?”

Tony has never been looked at this way. Like he was a small, fragile thing, like he could disintegrate at any moment.

"I'm pretty sure," he rasps, "you're not that lethal." 

She turns on the spot, dizzy with adrenaline, dizzy with guilt, throat parched. The streets are empty, littered with garbage. She feels like an alien on an inhospitable planet. 

She swallows a sob. “What if everyone was gone? What if I was  _ alone _ ?” 

She hates that she sounds like a little girl. She wants her mother so badly. She wants someone to hold her.

She's a weepy drunk, after all. 

Tony goes to her. 

“You’re not. Hey, you’re not alone.”

The best he can do is put his arms around her. Gather her to him. It’s her turn to cry. She buries her head in his chest. He feels the ripples that shake her body, but he can’t hear her sobs. She locks the lament in a chamber inside him, he feels it being caved into him. 

He holds the back of her head and feels a strange sensation of borrowed love. He could be her father, her brother, her mother, he could be all of those people for one moment. He could replace their imprint. They could pretend. He loses himself in the physical sensations, the weight of her scalp and the scent of her hair, like rain and eucalyptus. The warmth of life that never goes out. 

And he’s still bleeding. 

She sniffs and rubs her nose against his shirt. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Where do you wanna be?” he asks quietly.

“Nowhere.” 

“Hey,” he says. “Look at me.”

He tilts her head up, warm hand on her jaw.

“What?” she asks petulantly. 

“Let’s go to Mont Blanc.” 

 

 

 

 

_ eleven months after the Snap  _

 

She forgets to bring her Mont Blanc pajamas with her. 

He buys her new ones.  

They make an odd pair as they amble through the quaint streets of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. They look like they’re apart, like they’re each walking in their separate lane and they only meet in the middle sometimes. They don’t link arms, don’t get cozy as they share a bench on the promenade. They glance at each other only when the other is not looking. 

She thinks the chalets are made of real ginger bread, they even smell sweet. The mountains are sugar-dusted too. 

“I wish Thanos had landed here first,” she says, biting her thumb. The street vendors greet the tourists as if nothing happened.  

“Why’s that?”

“It’s too... perfect. Like a fairy-tale.”

“Well, we’re not staying here.”

“We’re not?” 

He smiles and points up at the mountain. “We’re survivors. We belong up there.” 

 

 

 

The chalet is well away from any human footprint. It’s well stocked, like a bunker at the end of the world. There’s something of a fox den about it. Shuri loves the smell of burning logs. She cuts up apple rinds and throws them in the fire. The scent is intoxicating. 

She likes to climb the steep hill behind the wooden shed.  

Her calves burn. She throws herself in the snow when she reaches the top. The sight is breathtaking and disturbing. She stares down at a half-scooped cliff, the ragged, unshaved face of a crag. 

She takes her skis and attempts to slide down that face. 

After the third almost successful attempt, she sprains her ankle. 

She lies half-buried in a snowbank, feet up in the air, staring at an impeccable sky. 

Depression is like that remote sky, clean and frosted. They can send ships to it. They can send flying robots. They can send humans with impossible powers.

But the sky remains a drawn curtain. This is the eye’s perception. Only the ancestors may truly pull it back and reveal the stars. But they’ve forsaken her. 

Tony blocks her view, looks down at her with folded arms. 

“Having fun?”

Her eyes crinkle and the frozen tears break into a fine powder. 

“I’m just getting started.” 

 

 

 

(he blows smoke into the night air, white spirals quickly swallowed by the annihilating mountain air. 

"you never really quit, did you?" 

he shrugs. "there's more than one way to quit, you know."

Shuri doesn't contradict him. 

"Baba used to smoke these big cigars with gold leaves on them. I loved the roasted smell before...before he smoked them. It's always better before."

Tony thinks about his father's old habits. He thinks about these ghostly, monumental men who once held them in their arms after they were born. 

Are all fathers so predictable? 

he applies ice to her foot. "Yeah. Before is always better." )

 

 

 

He plants two pillows under her foot.

“Keep it up like that.” 

She lies on the rug with her head against the couch leg and stares at the fire. Immobility doesn’t suit her. “I’m bored.”

“You’ve got a higher IQ than all of us combined. I’m sure you can entertain yourself.”

She sticks out her tongue. “Only the small-minded are jealous.” 

Tony props himself on one knee next to her. He stokes the fire. 

“What makes you think I’m jealous?”

Shuri plays with a lock of hair. “I’m pretty sure you were not designing wholesale infrastructures at my age.” 

“Well...I didn’t have vibranium.”

She scoffs. “You know very well that’s not why.”

“ _ Fiiine _ . When I was your age I...was mostly spending time trying to make  _ Weird Science _ come true.” 

She has no clue what  _ Weird Science _ is, so he’s forced to tell her about the not so beloved beloved 80s classic where two teenagers create the perfect “babe” using a basic computer program.

Shuri is appalled.

“That’s - how can you enjoy something like that? It’s disgusting!”

“It’s actually a lot deeper than that,” he argues. “They learn about the value of human life and how to treat their girlfriends right, trust me.” 

“Still. White boys are gross.”

Tony chuckles.“Can’t disagree with you there. But to be fair, I was mostly interested in the programming stuff; I wanted to see how far artificial intelligence can go.” 

Shuri’s interest perks up. “Jarvis?” 

He smiles. “Jarvis.”

It goes from there. The conversation is like water from a broken dam. Once it starts, it can't be stymied. It flows ceaselessly, inexhaustibly. They swap scientific logs, in a sense: ideas and theories born out of tireless curiosity, their first inventions, their first breakthroughs, their first failures. The moment they fell in love with the chase. 

It’s like sharing oxygen underwater. 

He laughs with his whole face, which actually hurts a little. He hasn’t done it in a long, long time. It’s not that she’s telling the funniest joke ever, although she probably could. It’s her utter, pure-hearted joy, her effortless ebullience, like she’s walking on clouds. She’s so happy when she gets to learn something new. She’s so happy when she gets to talk about what she’s learned. It reminds him of who he might have been, who he never grew up to be, who he is  _ now  _ in her presence, thanks to her generous reflection.  

Her enthusiasm makes him feel a funny feeling in his stomach, like a kid nervous on his first day of class. It’s ridiculous.  

Shuri’s eyes shine with delight. “I wish I’d met you earlier.”

Tony swallows. This isn’t good for his ego. Or that sensation of free-fall in his stomach. 

“Why’s that?” 

She laugh self-consciously. “Because there’s finally someone who can keep up with all my crazy, unorthodox ideas.” 

Tony stares at the oval of her face. There are some things you’re not meant to look at directly. “It’s good to meet a fellow freak, huh?” 

“Yes! I can finally share all the things I haven’t fully articulated because I know you’ll be able to keep up. People at home tell me to slow down all the time. It's so frustrating.”

“Oh, I know. We can be very obnoxious when we don't have an off button. Pepper used to tell me that-”

He stops and staggers, mouth slightly open. This is the first time he’s referred to his wife in the past tense. He takes a deep breath. 

The blaze of joy cools to soft embers. She lowers her eyes. 

Tony bites his tongue. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment. He braces himself. 

“She used to tell me ...that it was always a pleasure to not understand me. That it brightened her day whenever I talked gibberish.”

He grabs the poker with shaking fingers and stirs the logs.  

Shuri doesn’t look at his hand. 

She shifts carefully, resting on her elbow. “T’Challa used to tell me I’d get banished by the elders if I kept using made-up words.” She laughs sadly to herself. “He was right, though. Some of the words were made-up.” 

Tony snorts fondly. He runs a hand over his face.  “We were lucky to have them.”

“We  _ are  _ lucky to have them,” Shuri amends. 

Tony lies down on the rug with a soft thud. 

Shuri wavers for a moment. She scoots down with him, careful not to upset her leg.  

She lies with her head on her elbow, an arm’s length away. 

The fire crackles cozily at their backs. 

“Your foot -”

“I’m fine.”

He closes his mouth. 

They are both a little startled by the proximity as they stare into each other’s eyes. 

She breaks the contact and looks at the arc reactor instead, glowing blue through his shirt. 

“Can I touch it?” 

Tony thinks,  _ this is a bad idea _ . He thinks about the time he’s spent living and not knowing her, not knowing that there was a little flaming spirit out there who could get him excited about the point of it all. 

He realizes they shouldn’t have come here. 

He nods silently.

Shuri reaches forward shyly. She traces the pattern of his substitute heart. The reactor is warm. 

Her eyes shine with that constant delight in all things impossible. 

He drinks it in. 

All he needed to do these past few months was to let her believe. 

She sidles closer to him, or he sidles closer to her. He doesn’t know.

What he  _ does  _ know is that he is too old to let himself get tangled in someone like her. 

She’s nineteen, for fuck’s sake. She is in a whole other universe. She is more inaccessible than the people they’ve lost. 

Yet, she’s also just a breath away. 

She parts her lips, glancing down at his mouth. 

She’s going to kiss him. It’s not arrogance on his part, not wishful thinking. 

She wants to kiss a goddamn wreck. And he can’t stop her. In fact, he’s going to be a fucking idiot and very possibly kiss her back. 

He can already taste it, like biting into snow, self-incrimination, regret and desire, all indistinguishable, all crystalized. 

The moment hangs like a suspended comma, it lingers and lengthens, like an after-kiss before the kiss. 

His hand comes up to trace her cheek. 

Her shadow covers him. Her breath is sweet with the hot chocolate she drank earlier. He made it for her. 

But the moment doesn’t come. Their mouths never meet. 

She moves away from him suddenly. Looks down at the vibranium bracelet around her wrist. 

It is pulsing angrily. 

She swallows guiltily. 

“Help me to…”

Tony nods. He has to pick himself up first. It feels like she's hit him again.

It takes a second. 

He puts his hands around her waist and pulls her up on the couch. 

He turns, walks to the fireplace and stands with his back to her. 

After a while, she speaks. 

“I have to - I have to go back home.”

“New York?”

_ That’s not home for her _ , he realizes the moment he says it.

“Wakanda,” she confirms. “They’re going to depose me if I don’t.”

Tony looks at her in surprise. 

“They can do that?”

She nods sadly.  “I kind of deserve it. Haven’t been a very good queen, have I?”

He can’t answer that. Can’t even begin to. 

Shuri looks down at her hands. There’s a faint blush on her cheeks.

“Tony, I - I don’t regret-”

“I’m going to arrange for a helicopter to come get us.” 

He walks out of the room. Like he couldn’t get away faster.

She hangs her head. The fire can’t warm her anymore. 

It’s going to be a cold journey home. 

**Author's Note:**

> i may have taken notes from that San Junipero scene where they dance to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and I may have recycled that one snippy line from The Dark Knight, but everything else is me & myself crying on the floor


End file.
